A recent study by researchers of Agriculture University, Faisalabad, shows farmers in Punjab are growing 52 transgenic Bt cotton varieties.

Of these, only nine are officially approved.

Even out of those nine, four were approved provisionally (for a year in 2010) and, technically speaking, are still under official scrutiny.

Out of the collected samples from the field and seed sellers, only 15 percent belonged to the officially approved varieties; it also means 85 per cent of them were of unknown parentage and origin.

The ‘quantitative expression analysis. showed only one per cent of them had required amount of toxin level. To make the matter even worse, none of the officially (permanently and provisionally) approved nine varieties had the lethal level of toxin – strong enough to kill the boll worms.

The study only pointed out the extent of the problem but stopped short of blaming anyone because it was not the researchers’ mandate. It restricted itself to asking government to better regulate the sector.

The situation, as summarised by the report, has progressively assumed the current proportion over the last one decade for a number of reasons. Firstly, the officialdom turned a blind eye to what was happening in the field. Secondly, when it did wake up to the situation, it made the matter worse by prematurely approving some varieties. Thirdly, some of institutions (both federal and provincial) got involved in illegal import of seed. Thus the country has had more cotton varieties than what it had developed, imported or private sellers smuggled in the previous more than 50 years. All these acts have come back to haunt the sector now.

Many cotton farmers are big landholders, with a lot of financial and political clout. It became hard for the government machinery to stop the illegal seed trade.

That is how some of the government institutions joined hand with these big farmers and brought in more varieties, released them without any regulation or preparation.

In Punjab, a few cotton varieties are available which are identified with government officials or state institutions. No one knows where these varieties came from and who is selling them.

The unregulated sale of seed has increased the financial lure: the cotton seed is a multibillion business in the name science and technology. Incidentally, both these streams are missing in the seed.

Pakistan sows cotton on around eight million acres. In Punjab, some seeds are being sold at Rs1,000 per kg as ‘ new variety ‘ and every acre requires around five kilogrammes of seed. If one company or an individual can capture only 20 per cent the market, the sale can top Rs1.5 billion. With this kind of financial attraction, every one is trying to be part of the business. That is why most of the officials are found representing private companies and institutions selling their own seeds.

Another factor that makes the business a source of windfall is an exit option. Since there is neither any registration nor regulation, one can simply abandon the sale at any point of time and disappear. If 52 cotton varieties are still part of the field, more than 10 went missing in the last 10 years because they could not perform beyond two to three years. They had a little financial cameo and disappeared without a trace. No one knows about them; who brought them in, who sold them and who made what at the cost of farmers.

The frequency with which these new varieties have come to invade Pakistan is simply mind-boggling, both in agricultural and scientific and technological terms. While the regularity of launch of new varieties left every one bewildered about their parentage and performance in the field, it also destroyed whatever was left of indigenous seed industry.

Farmers and officials know that a new seed variety takes decades to develop and market. It is a time-consuming processes: development of seed, its lab testing, multiplication, sale, sowing and expansion of business to make it feasible business proposition.—Ahmad Fraz Khan